09 June, 2009

The long awaited French threaded bottom brackets have just arrived. That means that you can finally restore that Singer, Reyhand, or Goeland that's been collecting dust in your garden shed. Or look for an inexpensive Peugeot, Gitane, or Urago to turn into a budget randonneuse. In the past you were limited to very expensive Phil Wood BBs or searching E-bay for old stock, now we have the full range of sizes.

Grand Cru bottom brackets have oversize sealed bearings and boron steel hollow axles. The cups are alloy. They includes axle bolts, and weigh about 258gm in 110mm. The taper is JIS. They are available in 103mm, 107mm, 110mm, 113mm, 116mm, and 122mm.

A few notes that may prove useful:

Most Motobecanes use Swiss, not French BBs, but some top of the line and later models used French. You can tell by checking the direction of the threading. A French BB has right hand thread on both sides. With Swiss it's left hand on one side.

If you want to reuse your old crank remember that it may be ISO taper, especially if it's an old TA or Stronglight or Campy. You can use a JIS BB, but the crank will sit 3-4mm further outboard; compensate with the BB spindle length you choose. Many old double cranks used 118mm BBs; I find 116mm JIS BBs to be a reasonable replacement.

French headsets can still be found on E-bay and we may make some in the future. But if you replace the balls and grease regularly those old headsets will last a very long time.

Would it be possible to, uh, keep this VO BB development kinda quiet?? Up until now it has been easy to convince someone that their poor French bike is un-fixable because there are no parts available for them. It made it much easier to pick up a Peugeot PX10 or nice LeJeune, etc. on the cheap. Even the hipster fixie-doofuses left the lowly French bikes largely alone.

This is great news, indeed; An inexpensive cartridge bottom bracket with French threads! So far, I have only bought one of those Phil BBs; and they are of wonderful quality; I just can't justify the Phil price for my 15 or so beater French bikes

uh,last time I talked to a hipster fixie guy, it was three days ago. He was in a shop, watching intently as the mech wrapped his chopped and flopped track bars with crisscross baby blue and pink, trimming the excess with an exacto. The bars weren't on his bike. I asked what it was. He said a Huffy. Remembering Andy Hampsten etc., I asked if it was lugged. He said, what's that? I explained, using my Colnago as an example. He said no. Hipster fixie.

Can't express how awesome it is that you're sourcing a French threaded modern BB. This means that updating an old French bike is within everyone's reach! I have a few friends with Peugeot Mixte's that are going to be very excited. Thanks for getting these obscure things made for the rest of us cycling nerds, and fans of classic bikes!

I've purchased and had installed on my Gitane Tour de France the new French threaded Velo-Orange bottom bracket. It's up to the high standard that I've come to expect from VO. I like cone, cup and loose bearings but this is much nicer. And I'm 100% certain that it won't start grinding afer a few long rides in the rain.

THANK YOU! Oh boy, my husband and I just brought home an old gitane and a peugeot. The guy selling them 'fixed' them up but did not understand the different threadings etc... So I rode home wondering what was wrong! He'd put a non french cottered crank on. as the original was rusty. We have been banging away on the bikes trying to get the cranks off and figure out what to do. And researching the net and fretting over phil wood prices. Thank you! We didn't really know what we were getting into with french bikes. it will save us much hair pulling when we get around to fixing up and rebuilding these bikes.

I have a 74 motobecane grang touring. French bb. I have a shimano fc-m442 that I want to put on it. Will your bb work? If so what length spindle? The crank call for a bb-un26 (-E) MM110 for 47.5mm chain line with a 68mm shell.

I think my chain line is less than 47.5mm. My current Nervar spindle is 115mm or 117mm, I think? I want a good fit. Advice please. I don't want Phil Wood bb because of the cost.

My old crank and spindle is kinda like one of these double cranks. I need lower gears now for my old legs. http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g2_itemId=5766

i have a peugeot PH10LE from roughly 1985-7. it has the original nervar crank on it, can't figure out the exact model but contemporary peugeots seem to have come with a nervar 3020.

i got the BB replaced, but it's some kind of jerryrigged italian-threaded setup which is already starting to get crunchy again, and i want to replace it once and for all with a proper french-threaded one. my new mechanic eyeballed it and said, "you'll probably need a 118 for that"-- but could he really see a 2mm difference? someone earlier in this thread recommended a 116mm for a 1974 nervar, but this is 12 years later... any advice welcomed.

i picked up a 1971 motobecane grand record and want to take it apart and give it a complete tune up/overhaul. not a bike mechanic, so i'd have to trust a local bike shop. was looking at sheldon brown's site, and some things concerned me, especially the crank extraction(the catalog says 'stronglight alloy cotterless 40-52' and SB warns that you MUST have the proper extraction tool)and BB assembly. anyone out there who could give me advice before i potentially make a huge mistake?